Of Technology and the Future
Posted by Heading Out on April 24, 2007 - 11:32am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: American Petroleum Institute, tar sands, technology [list all tags]
I was planning on writing a little more on technology, or rather the lack of development thereof, but thought I would begin by commenting on the Tar Sands issue a little more. I noted that in Robert’s post on the API call where he began the discussion with the note about the rivers around Fort McMurray turning brown due to the tar sands residue. Well one of the wonders of today’s technology is that you can check.
I had posted about this before, but this time thought to use modern technology. If you go to Google Earth and type in “Fort McMurray” it will give you an overview of the town in Alberta, and the mines can be found just to the North of it. Please note that the river running through the town, from the mines, is blue. Now I don’t think that Google spends their time painting in rivers – so I guess it really is (Well it is really clear, but you get my point). As I noted at the time the brown color occurs as the water from the sand/bitumen separator carries the sand to the tailings pond. Because the clean sand is brown when wet the water looks brown, until the sand settles out in the pond. You can see that the sand then dries to a whiter color, and the contained water in the main body of the pond is also blue. (It was also blue when I saw it on my visit). Once the hole dug to remove the oil sand has been filled in, then the cover will be replaced and it will return to normal, except that the rivers and streams won’t have a tarry bottom any longer.
As I saw, when going out to dinner last Saturday night, we are now entering High School Prom Season as this year’s graduates prepare to move on to jobs and college. It is this generation that will see the unfolding energy crisis in all its facets. While in college they will likely see Peak Oil; while working Peak Natural Gas, and, before they retire, Peak Coal. Which means that between those about to retire and these kids lies the brain power that is going to have to solve the reality of finding alternate sources of fuel at World-scale volumes.
Oh, and before I get into the discussion of the technology we need, let me also note that you can waste far too much time wandering around KSA with Google Earth looking at the wells around Shaybah, and what an active site appears to be, and then going over to Ain Dar and looking at the sand covering the roads and parking lots. (Purely anecdotal - I know.)
There are two issues that, I believe, API does not really address in their response that technology will come to the rescue of a world that is going to be running out of fossil fuel. The first part is the personnel and knowledge base issue. In Episode 3 of Connections 1, James Burke noted that a generation after Henry V won the battle of Agincourt with Welsh longbows there was a drastic shortage of archers, because they had all found other things to do. (The same thing was to happen a few hundred years later in Scotland when the recruiters for the British Army went up to fill the Highland Regiments and found the population largely diminished). And the same thing has happened in fossil energy.
It is an increasing concern to industry, now having to pay $80,000 for starting salaries to fresh graduates, with starting bonuses. It is a concern to the Universities, since their faculty are continuing to retire and are difficult to replace with qualified folk. And it came about because, for the past 20-odd years there was no demand for such engineers. A large number of those who graduated in the 70’s and early 80’s were laid-off and found careers elsewhere, and those that remained are now nearing the end of their time, with a large gap in the middle. It takes time after graduation to really learn the ropes of an industry, and more particularly to learn those things that need to be done differently to improve performance, and to have the clout to make that happen. The comment about Robert Service’s poem The Man who Knew is more real than many may admit. And most of those who will graduate will be needed to meet the increasingly technical complexities of winning higher production rates from current but increasingly lean resources, rather than looking at the over-riding alternative approach that can give more than incremental change.
So where is technology needed? There are, of course, many avenues that can be followed, but it seems that, in the main, the problem can be divided into three parts. Given that liquid fossil fuels for transportation are likely to be the first to feel the pinch, and with an infrastructure in place, the initial effort should, most profitably, be directed at increasing production from existing reserves. By this I mean such things as developing fluids that will displace more of the oil from a reservoir than the current amount. One way to do this that has been discussed is the use of liquid carbon dioxide as a means of enhancing oil recovery. There are, however a variety of ways that can be used. And, were there motivation, there might well be additional ways that await development. However it should also be remembered that not all oil recovery methods work in the different rock conditions found in different reservoirs. These are techniques that can have very large rewards, but where the need is more immediate. As an illustration, consider that with mining of the oil sands all the oil is recovered, but when conventional or enhanced recovery techniques are used to extract it from wells only perhaps half of it is recovered. Perhaps this might lead to techniques where the oil-bearing rock is mined underground, stripped of value, and returned. This is, after all, how many metals are mined from large underground deposits. The likely economics of this are, however, driven by a preliminary need to do this remotely, since one of the higher energy costs in mining comes from providing for the safety and health of miners (things like providing clean air to breathe).
In the intermediate term we will still, to a large extend be burdened with existing technology as far as the need for liquid fuel is concerned, and this is where alternate sources of fuel are now getting all the attention. However there are, apart from the technical issues, also problems in relying on fuels that can be grown if they are vulnerable to the droughts and storms that are part of a normal farmer's life. From this point of view, if no other, the renewable fuels that are developed to act as the bridge into the future will have to be diverse. Thus there will need to be some form of conversion of resources such as coal to provide the backup to the vulnerability of plant production. Bear in mind that the initial need is for a fuel that will power today's fleet, and in this regard there may be some significant benefit from a more intense study of algae. However sustained large-scale algae growing may have some considerable challenges that may not become evident until it is first tried (which I don't think it has been yet).
And these two together should give us enough breathing time to start developing the transportation system of the future and the power sources that they will require, in the volumes needed. It is, in this context, important to remember that, as a history prof once commented, it was the automobile and the highway system that really opened up the country and provided opportunity for the majority of the inhabitants. This occurred after the arrival of the railway and thus, while increased use of rail is a logical progression, it will not, in itself, be adequate and thus some form of personal vehicle will still be required. Thus some form of energy storage, whether liquid, battery or other will need to be developed, but bear in mind that there is a “cart and the horse” situation here and until such systems are defined and developed that there will be decades over which the change will have to take place. My own thought is that electric cars are likely to be a significant player - solar-powered cars have raced across various parts of the world at speeds above the legal limit (shhhh!), designed by undergraduate students, and the potential evolution of this into vehicles for use more mundane mortals is liely one of time (if the program continues to get support). For larger vehicles perhaps hydrogen may provide the fuel, particularly if more effective ways of producing it (say from the weak beer produced by cellulosic ethanol) prove to be effective.
Will it get done in the time before this years High School Graduates retire? For their sake I hope so, but there needs to be a sense of urgency and understanding of the size of the problem that sadly remains lacking. Further with the decline in interest in science and engineering shown by these self-same students, it may be that there won't be the critical mass of investigation needed for the breakthroughs that must come.
If there were the careers available for scientists and engineers, the interest in those professions among students would also be there. They're not, so there isn't. And with outsourcing, probably never will be again in the U.S. except in limited areas for limited times like petroleum engineering. But I suppose that China may sell us the breakthroughs when they make them.
Many things have been outsourced, maybe too many... but, most innovation is in the US. Simply check the number of Nobels. The current hot thing is solar; silicon valley and other locales are throwing a lot of money at this, I expect low cost solar (<$1/w) to appear here in a couple of years. There is still no place on earth more receptive to startups with new ideas than the US. A fundamental flaw in our education system is that it does not do a good job educating the majority; a fundamental plus is that it instills original thinking to a minority that are really interested in obtaining an education, and this minority (including some foreigners who come here for education) is generating most of the planet's original thinking.
TOyota is now no. 1, not least because of indiana transplants replacing michigan factories. Does it matter much that ownership is japanese? Japan does do a great job perfecting ideas with high quality manufacturing. A benefit of free trade is world wide partnerships.
High starting salaries for pet geologists will generate new grads in a few years, if there is a shortage of profs, some of the retiring petroleum geologists will teach a bit, say one semester a year... and, these recycled geologists will have a lot of practical knowledge to pass on.
All of the above brought to you by the hidden hand, which works best here...
Permanent jobs are the greatest threat to full employment.
Most innovation is still in the U.S.? Doesn't show. Most advanced cell phone service? Not in the U.S. Most advanced broadband? Not in the U.S. Most advanced refineries? Not in the U.S.
And if your idea is that optimum economic efficiency requires 5-10 year careers, then you will have to accept the side effects; eg, no one will want to make the sacrifices to get the degrees and no one will have any experience.
Jk: Realistically, it depends where one is on the economic spectrum. The current structure of the US economy is the most advantageous it has ever been for probably 25% of the country's population. It is the worst is has been in 50 years for the remaining 75%. The other issue is that this ratio is creeping upward steadily- if the investor class manages to control the economic agenda, within 10 years this split will be more like 85-15, IMO.
The "hidden hand"?
Based on outdated Enlightenment Deism, discredited by two world wras, among other things.
Hi J,
Thanks for your perspective.
I have a couple of qs.
1) When you talk about "free trade", do you mean multinationals that can locate and re-locate anywhere, as they see fit?
This seems a little different than "trade".
And what about multinationals with offshore banking addresses? Is this the same as "trade"?
2) When you talk about the "world wide partnerships", how do you see these being feasible post-peak? (Or do you?)
3) Sincere question: Why did the US invade Iraq? And where is this leading?
4) What's your thinking about the question asked below, re: increasing divide between "classes" of beneficiaries of the US educational system - and the world "trade" system?
In the specialized Departments the demand is there now, and the enrollments are starting to reflect this, but you are right in that until the need is made more evident, and the rewards similarly so, then the overall situation will not change.
One bright spot is that a lot more of the fuel generation will migrate back closer to the point of end-use. On the smallest scale the farmer co-operative development of corn ethanol plants increases, if only by small numbers, the jobs in the rural communities where they are placed, and slows the drift to the big city.
HO;
As an additional side note on the Tar Sands, Yes you can see the tailings ponds, I've been there and saw first hand, as well as google earthing it! Those white sandy beaches in Google Earth are clay beaches. Here is the problem, You cannot filter or remove clay from water, you can remove a percentage, however on a high volume daily basis, the "fines" add up. In the words of an oil industry executive "If you find a way of removeing 100% of the clay,.. you are god & patent it!"
I happen to operatate a much smaller clay separating unit from Cetco which is a subsidary Company for Amcol Int. We are slowly plugging up the sewer lines, even though we dual filter it, that is the liquid solid separating filter is 30um, then the water travels through a 20um sock/bag filter unit. Tertiary recovery program on a small scale = big bottleneck in production flow.
Additionally, there is a Phd thesis by Fredrik Robelius on peak oil, not sure if anyone saw this?
OCB
Did you ever try the electrical current method for sedimentation enhancement? Some 30-odd years ago when I had a tailings pond type of problem this was one of the solutions that seemed possible. We ended up doing something else so I never really chased it down very far, but it has always stuck in my mind as a possible answer.
Yes yes we did look at this. I forgot about this, you looked too eh! I remember some of the problems (just) variable resistivity in the mineral attachments on the clay particles causes reflective characteristics, so total turbidity (ntu) results were not good on thier testing. Secondly, did you guys have Ph problems? we did at the begining of the test trial period. But additional powder solved it, but I don't remember the powder. The Eng'rs determined evaporation was cheapest. yet the settling can take 70yrs or more, so they hoped for warm summers.
Our biggest problem is filtration of the majority of the clay fines, every 8hrs bags need changing.
Until everyone understand and addresses continued growth in a finite environment --- which is a huge paradigm shift for all of us. Efficiency will not matter; technology will not matter; urgency will not matter; and there will be no technology to fix this future. This is the fundamental essential truth that no one likes to talk about – including your article.
Spot on, iclimbrock. Unfortunately, HO appears (from this post) to be unable to envisage a world that isn't largely the same as it is now, so some alternative to oil and natural gas must naturally be found. We need to deal with the reality that this is a finite world. And we need to deal with it very soon. Posts like this do a disservice because they include an implicit assumption of a solution (allowing business as usual); we just have to figure it out. It ain't so.
Could not of said it better myself---
Until we come up with a new relationship to the means of production, this expansion of growth in a finite environment will continue.
To come right to the point: Capitalism goes, or we go. We are a incredibly imaginative species, we can come up with a solution (possibly). The problem is we have evolved survival skills that no longer apply to the world we currently inhabit.
I don’t believe capitalism is necessarily the problem --- the pursuit of individual interest often produces a collective good for society and decentralized control and the freedom of choice is extremely motivating and efficient. But we must re-learn that it's to our individual best interest, society’s best interest, and that of our children’s best interest, to no over populate, over produce, or pollute our environment. There have many social moments in history where groups of people have earned their rights -- the abolishment of slavery, women’s right to vote, etc. Now we need a new social movement – the rights of the young and future generations (and many poor people all around the world) – to live in a clean, productive, and sustainable world and to have the same opportunities of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I can imagine a society that has a higher standard of living than the average person in the world has today and that is sustainable; but it has a lot smaller population and somehow we have to get from here to there in the next 100 years.
But this just isn't a problem in the next several centuries. World energy production is less than 1/1000th the solar flux.
Sadly, I don't really believe in a "technological solution" to the problem of Peak Oil. I really wish I did, but I don't. I'm actually biased in favour a tech-fix. I want this to happen and be true; but, but, but.
From where we stand now, given timescale contraints, we should be planning to actually reduce our consumption of oil and gas "substantially" in the coming decades. However, we are going to do the opposite, basically use far more, and save a bit. It's rather like our other great problem, global warming and forced climate change. Without drastic cuts in our consumption of fossile fuels, all we can hope for is to reduce the level of increase in our carbon emissions, not reverse it.
Our fundamental problem, bigger than the two above named, is our model of social organisation, which is literally killing us and the planet. We won't deal, we actually can not deal with these challanges without confronting the elephant in the room, social organisation. I don't actually have an answer to this "problem", but I do think that relying on the "market" and this "invisible hand" thing to save us, is both a recipe for disaster and delusional.
If you haven't, I suggest that you go back up to the story and click on the link to the poem "The Man Who Knew." Answers you better than I can.
Yeah, I've read the poem. I sort of identify with the Dreamer rather than the man who knew. Is that the right answer?
I too think we need to dream and hope and work for solutions. I think we need Utopias as well, something to we can strive for. Today, for example, we could, if we wanted to, eliminate hunger and desease on world wide basis, and most of us wouldn't even notice the cost. We have the resources, the know-how and the money. It's a problem that do-able, for perhaps the first time in history. All we'd need to do is transfer around two trillion dollars we collectively waste on military expenditure a year to eradicating poverty. Taking the historic lead, the United States could choose to transform itself from a war-economy, into a peace-economy. It's prefectcly feasable and it's not exactly cutting-edge thinking is it? Only problem is, I don't see us doing it, inside the confines of our current socio-economic paradigm. And if we can't do something as relatively "easy" as this, then I'm sceptical about us dealing with far larger and fundamental problems like Peak Oil and Global Warming.
Does this make me a Doomer? I hope not. Intellectually, in my head, I don't see us changing our ways. Emotionally, in my heart, I feel we have to, we must, we don't have a choice, and I'm doing everything I can to bring on the "revolution."
I'm struck by the fairly common (but false) belief both on this forum and others, that we (humanity ) are at the peak of evolution, and therefore should strive to retain the status quo in terms of the Western worlds level of comfortable civilization, and also spread that level to all other people on the planet. Having spent some time studying a variety of disciplines,including cultural anthropology and what's commonly termed "Chaos Theory" (not the movie version, the real deal ) in the last 62 years, it's my considered opinion that a complex system that stops evolving will inevitably die. Lots of historical, and experimental, evidence for this if anyone cares to do the research.
Briefly, and in very simplistic terms, progress in terms of adaptation to a changing environment(evolution)requires stress. That stress is nearly always violent and unforgiving, but results in a species and/or cultural norm that is suited to the new physical and cultural environment.
I think what bothers most people is that they (we) cannot envision what that new species will be, even tho we are partially responsible for it's evolution. We are currently Homo Sapiens. What we will become is unknown, but we can be certain it will be something different than what we are now.
Does a tadpole know it will become a frog?
Even if we were at the peak of evolution, it would probably be irrelevant, since there is no way we are going to survive in the numbers we have under any scenario. The main thing that need to evolve, and pronto, is our brains, which are totally unsuited for long term survival on this planet.
Nicely said.
Transformation through stress, pain, and devouring. In nature, everything gets eaten by another. Life evolves. There's something extraordinarily beautiful in this, which is why I'm a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist.
Thank you. In the same vein, I've often wondered why it is that people tend to view themselves as somehow apart from "nature". I suppose it's because "people are shmart"? (re: the Geico commercials ) :)
I would not say that we have stopped evolving its simply that we have reached a dead end route with the western/oil economy.
It ends when oil ends. I think you have to split the concept of evolution and refinement from the extinction of a species.
I general outside of generic calamities a species goes extinct when it becomes so refined that a destruction or changes in the condition of of the niche it is filling result in the collapse of the species while less specialized species continue. Obviously continued evolution that refines a species also lead inexorably to its own extinction. We have reached this point in a sense if peak oil had happened in the 1920's when we where less dependent on it the effects would have been far less dire. As we have continued to specialize and refine (pun intended) the oil economy we only ensured that the effects of peak oil will be that much more difficult to handle.
I think this is a better model since I don't think its correct to say evolution has stopped in the western/oil economy. SUV's and McMansions today are larger and more luxurious than any time in history :(
I generally agree. Would you agree that your comments regarding species refinement would also apply to cultural evolution/extinction ( an example might be the Mayan culture or any number of "dead" cultures )as opposed to biological?
I think so. The evidence would be we rarely see a earlier culture that dies. This may be simply because of lack of evidence but I'm talking about 100's and even thousands of years of stability before cultures seem to take a route that leads to a dead end. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that they refine a farming practice or trade method that maximizes resources and this becomes highly refined and enables a complex culture similar to today. And its suffers exactly the same complexity feedback breakdown mechanisms. Within reason esp over longer time periods cultures seem to follow the laws of evolution. Eventually dead ending in a complex society that fails when conditions alter on of the basic foundations of the society. These same problems would not have cause the society to fail at lower complexity levels. Extinction at least of culture is in my opinion tightly linked to cascading failures caused by feedback loops that become undamped and the complexity of the culture causes it to freeze or worse take actions that make the problem worse. Biological extinction seems to behave the same way. I'm fairly outspoken but on this issue a massive amount of knowledge backs my position that we will suffer massive systematic failure post peak oil and their is nothing we can do about it outside doing a controlled collapse.
China and India seem unique in that they never seemed to lose most of their technology despite multiple collapses. My best guess is that these are fairly large regions and fragmentation allowed something like ELP to be practiced through each collapse.
Close scrutiny of cultures that fared best through collapses might help use understand how to do WT ELP protocol.
With what I'm saying about China and India they must have practiced some sort of controlled collapse to achieve ELP I think with what I know about both regions and the incredible amount of diversity in language and culture that exists the trick is when the empires collapsed all the provinces simultaneously broke away into small kingdoms.
Both countries maintain this rich diversity today and I think it was critical to success in the past when the empires collapsed. Clans in Iraq are a similar protection system. In areas that where more homogeneous collapses where much deeper and longer. If I'm right this diversity in culture acts the same as biodiversity to prevent mass extinctions. And of course as usual just about anything that would make peak oil less painful has been lost and much of it in the last 20 years.
Hopefully someone who disagrees will be willing to present a well balanced and thought out rebuttal not the technology will save us drivel I've seen. Very few even present a reasonable way to even introduce this saving technology.
Technology post resource peak actually tends to hasten the collapse by diverting energy from replacement solutions into attempts to maintain the status quo. So in my opinion I suspect that cultures that took the tech route in attempt to maintain business as usual probably crashed even harder since they would have had to take resources from viable new approaches that laid the ground work for the birth of a new culture.
Outside of that I'm convinced massive collapse is now not only possible but must happen because of the basic math/dynamics of the system. Protected ELP incubators however do seem to allow post collapse revival to happen quickly although they do not avert he collapse itself. For ELP I think monasteries of the dark ages make a excellent model for preserving knowledge and eventually reapplying it to the new situation when cultures start growing again. I think you have to look at a Monastic like system if ELP is going to work. I suspect many where far looser than is portrayed today and doubt all the super strict rules they had where essential for success but you certainly need a strong covenant between several hundred people with a very clear and obvious set of rules to make monastic approaches viable.
I cannot see many Americans making this transition. The more modern Israeli Kibbutz is probably closer to what we would at least tolerate and they are successful.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/kibbutz.ht...
It effectively impossible to prevent and I know of no example where either biological or cultural extinction was averted when a complex system went into feedback implosion.
Not one.
I would love to be proved wrong.
I have absolutely no desire to right if someone knows of a realistic way out of this vortex time to speak up.
You put a lot of thought into this. My brain says you're probably correct, my gut hopes you aren't. Ever read "Cannibals and Kings" by Marvin Harris? If not, it's worth a read. A little dated, and I don't totally agree with all of his conclusions, but he does offer some insight.
Cool book thanks !
memmel wrote:
"Protected ELP incubators however do seem to allow post collapse revival to happen quickly although they do not avert the collapse itself."
Along with your same vein thoughts above, I suggest the closest ELP culture we have in this country to be had as a guidepost is the Amish.
The only "way out of this vortex" that I imagine requires an acceptance of the harsh realities we've dug ourselves into while relinquishing the illusion of control and techno-fixes we keep trying to exert over them. In short: a paradigm shift of our cultural myths. However, this is not particularly "realistic" given our stubborn and egocentric adherence to unrealistic myths (and commercialization) of power and reliance upon applying mops & buckets instead of simply reviewing how best to shut off the taps to our problems.
As Rene Dubos foresaw in Reason Awake: "Developing countertechnologies to correct the new kinds of damage constantly being created by technological innovations is a policy of despair. If we follow this course we shall increasingly behave like hunted creatures, fleeing from one protective device to another, each more costly, more complex, and more undependable than the one before... while sacrificing the values that make life worth living."
Rings a bell, doesn't it.
Still, in the US the Amish culture best exemplifies one sane way out. To whit: "Only a people serving an apprenticeship to nature can be trusted with machines. Only such people will so contrive and control those machines that their products are an enhancement of biological needs, not a denial of them." (Herbert Read, "The Grass Roots of Art")
But quite obviously we are not going to voluntarily relinquish the myth of control and take lessons from the Amish.
I'm not anti technology I think technology can be very useful more so post peak oil. Technology != Energy.
Technology is neither good nor bad nuclear reactions don't have feeling for example. In general the way we have used technology in general is pretty bad but you have to separate the way we have applied technology from the mere existence of technology. For example a light weight powered tiller could easily tremendously increase the productivity of a farm for the energy used. My parent actually sent me to live with the Amish when I was a kid.
They would send me anywhere they could find in the summer.
My dad caught me with a five pound coffee can of fertilizer diesel fuel and black powder earlier that summer so the Amish who don't use chemicals looked like a safe bet :)
In any case back on track they would use horses and mules to pull standard 3 point hitch farm implements some groups would use small motors to power the farm equipment but use horses to pull. This is actually a very sensible mix of technology and common sense. I'm sure given the chance we could create some fantastic technologies that are clean and environmentally friendly and allow us to not fall back to the old problems of masses of farm labor with little real output. Overall the technical solutions presented are generally interesting in building a new society. But that means nothing about saving our current one.
And even though they did not use fertilizer I worked on manufacturing black powder since the old horse manure/hay from the stalls contained lots of urea. I just could not figure out where to get the dang sulfur. Sulfur from natural sources seems to be a pain. The Amish are lucky people :)
My Amish point was not anti-technology, but rather about how they manage to make wise judgments about what, when, and how to use it so that it doesn't get out of control. In this sense it is very much about scale of use, and for what end. Does it enhance their life and needs without causing greater disruption to their settled lives and long term sustainability. All of which involves a level of humility, responsibility, and respect for nature or creation that is totally lacking in our culture and use of technology.
We have too much 'know how' power and too little 'know why.' Our mythical control over life on earth is a deeply ingrained cultural one that all our vast array and feats of technological prowess only aggravates.
With respect to PO or GW, most all the technological solutions proposed are not true solutions to our underlying dilemma of how to live a sustainable life. They are manifest quasi-solutions tied to trying to maintain the unsustainable, which only paints us into a tighter dead end.
When it comes to technology I am all in favor of those which are of:
Further more, they are, in John Todd's words, "elegant solutions predicated on the uniqueness of place", and, I would add, the people and other creatures living in such places. In this way technology is an enhancement of:
To the extant that the Amish decently manage to get these qualities right in their use of technology is why I think they have some insight of wisdom to offer.
To the extant that our culture, our educational system, and scientists of all stripes brought up in the same tend to see no sense of obligation, limitations, or responsibility to the qualifications above that I am resolutely against.
Although I have no direct experience with the Amish of Pennsylvania, my area of rural western NY has a fairly large population of a similar community of Mennonite/Amish. I'd suggest pause before romanticizing the connnection of such people to the earth.
From what I've seen, the phrase 'long term ecological sustainability' appears to have little room in their practice. I've visited many small sawmills and generally see a willingness to take down every tree that can be sawn and milled into another dollar. Apart from this they remain quite dependent on the wider economy within which they live.
Interesting comment.
Low tech does not mean sustainable your correct.
In some ways if you move to depend on too much human labor you may actually require more resources than a high tech approach.
You could point to their use of modern medicine also as a strong dependency to the external economy.
Its not black and white by any means.
For sure within the various amish/mennonite communities there is a latitude of practices, some not as good as others. They are after all human.
I certainly didn't mean to "romanticize" them, which is why I said: "To the extent that the Amish decently manage to get these qualities (of my list above) right in their use of technology is why I think they have some insight of wisdom to offer."
Some do more so than others. Does this make them perfect? Absolutely not, as human perfection is not attainable. None the less, the better Amish communities make do with less over-industrialized technology (and all the imbalances that involves), and this self-imposition from within effectively results in much less hard to reverse or irreversible harm than our high-tech limitless non-negotiable way of life ever does.
I have little doubt that in the initial post peak crisis a lot of Amish or Mennonite communities will not suffer any where as badly a shock to their livelihoods as you or I will. It's worth considering why. How ever this PO crisis plays itself out, any practical guidepost is better than none, and I do suggest the Amish have a better one than any of us have going.
I'm sure we can all think of a few other existent cultures that may well initially survive PO better than ours, but I mention the Amish type as it is most closely akin to our western heritage and exists right under our noses.
Nice list. Hopefully you or someone can post a nice article on sustainable technology. And refrain from tying it to a prediction that it will save us. I think but the basic dogma if you will is important. And the approach should be from the viewpoint of if we had a chance to do it all over again and no oil but a reasonably complete technology base and esp information base.
Electric cars for example don't in my opinion make a lot of sense trains are far better. Solar powered blimps or zeppelins should also be revisited. Sail technology is already getting a revival but I think that the types of ships i.e sizes designs may be different for sail. A cargo catamaran or trimaran may be more viable for sail (solar hydrogen) powered ships.
We have very efficient airplane designs that are slower than today's aircraft do the need to remain slow? Flying wings make better sense for things like hydrogen or vegetable oil based jet engines since its much easier to keep the fuel lines warm.
I think we may be discounting air travel esp if slowing down just a bit will give big gains in efficiency.
Maybe the oil drum would be willing to start a solutions to peak oil targets discussion area that can focus on post peak issues. The core concept would be WT ELP but we can explore exactly what that means. My on thoughts on the political implications comes to startling conclusions.
One thing I'd like to see is a classic posts/article support. We need this for the current site also way to much valuable information is now buried in the Oil Drum.
Thanks. As to any article on sustainable technology I think is putting the cart before the horse. First we have to decide and agree upon what it is we absolutely need to sustain! Trying to even imagine what we hope/want to keep and what we'll be able to is IMO slipping faster and faster from our grasp.
As for predictions, I only predict that the vast technological cart we have hog tied ourselves to and attempt to control - with ever dimishing results - will not save us. In fact, I predict the longer our deaf, dumb and blind reliance upon it continues to fly in the face of earthly reality will only lead us to greater destruction, well before any mythical salvation arrives this way. There is just way too much negative feedback already in place thanks to our missapplied technology that can not be avoided by the increased application of more of the same.
Anyway, whatever solutions and technologies do survive the fall will arise from within the wreakage of particular places and the people therein. I try to remain hopeful there will be enough such viable places to understand and then not forget to place the horse well in mind before the damn carts they'll build.